


Take Flight

by Trash_Baby



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Hydra (Marvel), Mutant Reader, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Canon Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Pietro Maximoff Lives, Reader-Insert, Temporary Character Death, Test subject, because I love him, reader has wings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 12:51:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11944608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash_Baby/pseuds/Trash_Baby
Summary: 'Your execution was meant to be a quick ordeal, and for what it was worth, you suppose that it had been.Had you been alive for this fact, you may have been grateful.'Reader is a Hydra test subject rescued by the Avengers.(No idea where this is going, so please bear with me)(Title subject to change depending on where this goes)





	1. Chapter 1

Your execution was meant to be a quick ordeal, and for what it was worth, you suppose that it had been.

Hearing commotion from the end of the cell block, your ears had perked up, catching the end of a shrill order; "-them all out before the facility is infiltrated!"

Though you knew better than to get up and try to see what was going on - punishment would be sure to follow such behavior - you could not stop the curiosity that had you sitting up from your awkward position on the (not your) cot. The sound of bullets meeting flesh made you wince despite having heard the explosive echo and wet splatter almost too many times to count, and your mind briefly wondered what was going on before you shook yourself from such thought. Thought wasn't allowed, only do. Follow commands, don't think; carry out orders, don't question. 

The groan of another cell door opening met your ears, and again; someone was shot. 

This continued, the noises growing louder and louder, and you had realized that it was getting closer. Despite the ingrained order to not think, your brain had kicked into overdrive as you tried to comprehend the situation. It was difficult to think - you couldn't remember the last time you had, or even if you ever  _had_ \- but your instincts thrummed with the urge to escape, and the wings on your back twitched, though the movement was futile whilst they were bound. Your captors had taken to wrapping the large feathered appendages with thick leather straps, only removing the restraints for training. You didn't understand why - it was painful and caused cramping, among other problems - yet something in the back of your mind hinted at the idea of you having once used them to attack; perhaps you had struck out at the guards, or the scientists as they performed their latest tests and 'enhancements' on you.

The guards had entered your cell without warning - though this was a regular occurrence for when they were instructed to fetch you - and you were jerked from your thoughts when you realized that you were next. Before you could stand to attention, as you were expected to do, the man in all-black tactical gear fired six bullets into your skull in rapid succession. You had collapsed to the concrete ground, knees colliding with the dirty surface and primary feathers bending and snapping on impact as the last round met its target. To your murderer's credit, he had impeccable aim and all six bullets had the same entry point, leaving your blood to pour from only one wound, almost dead-center between your wide eyes, already glossing over with death before the pain could even register. 

Being dead, you did not know what happened after that. 

The guards had left you to finish bleeding out, the once white and dirt-free feathers of your damaged wings that touched the floor now tinted red. They cell door left open as they moved on to exterminate the next test subject, not bothering to move your body until every execution had been completed.

Had you been alive for this fact, you may have been grateful.

* * *

 

The infiltration of Hydra facilities was becoming tiresome for the Avengers.

The ordeal had been put on hold after finding James Barnes, however, as the Super Soldier's condition slowly and somewhat surely improved, the two war heroes found themselves seeking out more of the hidden bases. Though Steve had been hesitant to allow Bucky to leave the safety of the Avengers Tower for missions, and even more so to return to anything Hydra, lest it be a trap for them to retrieve their precious 'Asset', the steely glint of resolve that darkened his eyes at the mention of the Nazi organisation gave the blonde pause for thought. 

After several months of digging for information, the location of a supposedly active Hydra base had been uncovered. At this fact, Steve had been adamant on being the only Super Soldier to go, however a severe glare and several growls of colorful threats, Bucky's place on the mission was confirmed. The pair, alongside Natasha, Clint, and Sam, soon found themselves on board a Quinjet, headed for Sokovia as they ran over the details of the mission.

"First and foremost, we eliminate all Hydra agents and other members. Once the place is cleared out, we scan the area for information and files, and then we destroy it," The group listens intently to Steve as he speaks, and each member nods when he explains their specific role. "Natasha, your top priority is getting as much information as you can - scope out the computers and download whatever you can find before wiping the hard drive. Sam and Clint, you two are on lookout; if anything goes wrong, we'll call you in to help. Bucky and I are on elimination duty."

Though he couldn't help but grimace at the way it was put, he knew that he and Bucky were best suited to the job - after all, he had spent months doing exactly that during the war.

After a six hour flight, the Quinjet was landed a mile out from the Hydra base location, and the four Avengers and an ex-Hydra assassin left the comfort of their transport to trek across the rocky terrain, splitting up into two groups about half a mile in. Steve led Bucky and Natasha to the back entrance they had agreed to use, and was only half surprised to find that their were no guards. Lately it seemed that they were only finding abandoned facilities, the Hydra members running rather than facing the fight. 

Shield held out and the assassins' guns drawn, the door is kicked open to reveal an empty hallway, looking like an abandoned factory. The trio weren't deceived by the building's disguise, knowing the facility to be underground, and they wasted no time in dividing up - Natasha to the left, Bucky to the right, and Steve straight ahead - to scope out the true entrance. It was only a matter of time until the redhead found the secret door in a cramped storage room, and they regrouped before opening it to descend. 

Steep concrete steps, worn from years of use, led them down what had to be four stories before opening up into a long narrow hallway, an array of doors that belonged to offices on either side. Once again, they took on the same formation as before, and Natasha and Bucky busied themselves with scanning each room whilst Steve made his way to the end of the hallway, finding that the double doors at the end led to another hallway. Kicking the doors open and preparing for an onslaught, he was once again half surprised to find no one raining down on him with a horde of bullets.

Blue eyes surveying the area over the top of his shield, Steve made his way into the room, only to pause at the end when he realized that it split off into two opposite directions, and so he opted to wait for the other two before continuing any further. Soon enough, the pair were flanking him again, and he motioned for Natasha to take on her side, before following after Bucky down the right hall. Part of Steve knew that he should go with Natasha, because both he and Bucky were Super Soldiers who were more than capable of handling themselves in a fight, but Steve couldn't shake the feeling that he might just be needed by the brunette.  _Besides_ , he thought to himself,  _Natasha can handle herself_.

Sure enough, Natasha found herself headed down a corridor filled with laboratories and what could be passed for offices. Finding that there were no threats to neutralize, she got to work with getting information, ramming the Stark designed USB into the main computer whilst she skimmed each room for physical papers of potential importance. Once the data transfer was complete, she slipped the drive out to replace it with a virus - once again designed by Stark - that would wipe the system and also anyone else's who tried to hack into the system. 

Meanwhile, the Super Soldiers found themselves walking down a grim hallway, the metal doors of interrogation and training rooms giving way to a second corridor. It took a considerable amount of effort to open the door, and when they finally did, it didn't take long to figure out why.

From the first open door, a trickle of red liquid had found its way out of the cell to pool in a dent of the uneven concrete. The puddle was almost burgundy, and when Bucky dipped a tentative toe into it, he dragged it back to form faint smears. "It's just barely still wet. Must've missed 'em by 'bout an hour."

Steve nodded grimly at his observation, steering clear of the blood to step into the cell, finding a crumpled body with a hole through his head, eyes wide open. Leaving the cramped excuse of a room, he checked the next cell, and the one after that, finding the same thing. By the seventh cell, Steve thought not to bother with checking any longer, knowing them all to be dead, but when he glanced into the eighth instinctively, he couldn't help but take a closer look.

Unlike the other bodies, this was the first female, though this wasn't what caught his attention. No, what made Steve creep into the gritty cell was the pair of wings that came from her back. Bucky had watched Steve check each room silently, choosing to remain outside in the corridor, as if on watch. However, when he caught sight of what the blonde was staring at, he couldn't help but follow, despite his looming fear of cramped spaces - a byproduct of Hydra's treatment.

_She looks like an angel_ , he thought, and not just because of the pale, downy wings. Despite the color being drained from her face from the obvious blood loss of her shot-wound, the smooth porcelain-appearance made him think of the little figurines he could vaguely remember Steve's mom had kept on the living room mantelpiece. His eyes washed over the feathers once again, taking in the blood that tinted them and the thick leather straps.  _An angel dragged down to Hell._

Steve seemed to share the sentiment, because he kneeled beside her prone form and lowered his shield to the floor, just out of reach of the sticky pool of blood, to brush her hair back with the tips of his fingers. "She didn't belong here."

Despite how careful he was, as Steve swept his hand over her open eyes to lower her lids, his palm caught the open wound between them. Jerking away as if he'd been burnt, Steve reaches up to wipe his hand against the side of his pants, only to fall back on his ass when her eyes suddenly flicker open, the irises that were previously filmed over by death suddenly bright and alert. 

"Help..."


	2. Chapter 2

Though you had never before been struck by lightning - from what you could remember - the feeling that jolted through your body was akin to a shock of electricity. Your eyes snapped open on their own accord, and your vision struggled to focus. Everything was hazy and blurred, the colors dimmed to shades just a touch above grey, and the shapes that you could make out were more smudges than anything of semblance. Your pupils slowly adjusted to the dim light of your cell, and as you stared at a vague shape, it slowly came into focus as a figure, someone crouching beside your head. 

"Help..." You slurred, tongue feeling too thick for your mouth. Words were not something that your mind could comprehend, yet your recovering brain seemed to think that this one was suitable to be spoken. Pain ricocheted to reverberate around your skull, and you struggled to drag your arm out from where it was trapped beneath your body to clutch at you head.

Your movements were sluggish and disjointed, as if you were remembering how to use your body again, but when your numb fingers made contact with your head, you were quick to jerk away as a stab of pain throbbed from the center of your forehead. Your brows dipped in confusion, the action setting off another wave of pain, and when you glanced at your hand to find a smear of darkness, you reached up a second time to run the tip of a finger at the aching point. Your finger was met with a ridge, the digit slipping into a hole, and the sudden memory of being shot flashed through your torn mind.

"Gun..." You mumbled, eyes trailing the cramped room as you struggled to lift your head from the floor. The side of your face came away sticky from the pool of blood it had been resting in, but before you could move any further, the sound of a gun's safety clicking met your ears. A broken sob clawed its way out of your throat despite the endless hours of training telling you to keep silent, to hold back any signs of pain or fear. 

You couldn't though, and a fractured plea escaped you as you tried to distinguish where the threat was located. Through blurry eyes, you managed to catch sight of a second figure, impossibly tall and broad as it loomed over you, gun drawn and aimed at your head. The first figure that you had made out had scrambled to stand too, something round and metallic in their hands, and the faint light reflected off of it to temporarily blind your already damaged vision. 

Forcing yourself to your hands and knees, you grunted against the weight of your wings, abnormally heavy as they hung limply from your back to curve around you, as if to protect. Aside from the pain in your head, you could barely feel anything else: not the cold, unforgiving concrete floor; not the puddle of your congealing blood that your fingers had accidentally dipped into; not the relentless drilling of two pairs of eyes as they watched you with something akin to disbelief. 

Your fingers brushed at the ground blindly, and the faint pressure of something against your palm made you look down. Fumbling, your numb fingers trembled as they wrapped around what you had found, and you lift it up slowly to see that it was a bloodied bullet, the offending item having been pushed out from where it had been lodged in your brain as your body rejected it. It dropped to the floor with a dull clink, bouncing once to roll until it came to a halt against the worn leather boot of one of the figures. 

"Six..?" 

The word was faint, but the two Super Soldiers heard it clearly enough. "I'm going to call-"

"Don't." Bucky uttered with a swift shake of his head, interrupting Steve as he stared down at her. "We can handle it."

"Handle it?" Steve questioned, daring to glance at his friend with a frown. "What, you want to put another bullet in her head? Leave her to wake up again in another hour?"

Bucky clenched his jaw, the muscles ticking, before shoving the pistol into its holster. "Not what I meant, Stevie." Except it was, partially. They knew nothing about you, or what you were capable of, and that made you dangerous, a threat. But it was clear that being shot at point-blank range only kept you down for maybe an hour or two, and so leaving you to find your way out of the place on your own would probably only cause more damage. 

Hearing the two figures talking in faint mutters, you didn't dare relax. You were slowly beginning to gain sensation in your body, your fingers, toes, and the tips of your wings tingling as the nerves came back to life. Color was beginning to creep into your vision too, though there wasn't much of it to be seen, besides the darkening crimson that was slowly drying to rust where your head had been only moments ago. "Dead..." You muttered as the shock of the situation began to trickle through your veins. You had  _died_ , you realized. That was  _your_ blood on the floor, and that bullet had been inside  _your_ brain. 

The air in your lungs felt like tar, thick and heavy, and you found yourself struggling to breathe. Sharp bursts of air left you to be replaced by faint gasps of oxygen, your throbbing brain only aching more as the supply of oxygen it needed in order to repair itself became weaker and weaker. Steve recognized you to be having a panic attack, and Bucky's mind supplied him with faint memories of a young Steve in the grips of an asthma attack, and suddenly both men were crouching on either side of your hunched figure, trying to calm you down enough to allow your breathing to even out. 

"Ma'am, you have to calm down," Steve tried, his voice a soft command as he placed a hand on your shoulder, though your breathing only grew shallower. "Can you hear me, ma'am? You need to calm down."

"Shut up, Steve! That's only gonna make it worse!" Bucky snapped, reaching out to slap his hand away, before turning his attention to you. "Miss, concentrate on your breathing. Listen to my breathing and try to copy."

Steve watched in quiet shock as Bucky's usual gritty tone softened to a gentle lull that one might use with a baby, his brooklyn accent that had returned with a fury fading out to something clearer. Bucky inhaled through his nose slowly, exaggerated and loud enough for you to hear over your own panic, before releasing the air through his mouth as a sigh. He repeated the pattern, and you tried desperately to focus on the sound, like a whisper over the rush pounding in your ears. "Breathe in," He murmured, inhaling, and you sucked in a shuddering breath, "And breathe out."

The soothing voice became clearer as the seconds ticked by, and your breathing gradually balanced out, oxygen finally registering in your system. "Good, that's good. You're okay, you're doin' a good job. Keep it up, steady breathin'."

"Dead..." You whisper again, and you turn slowly to face the figure next to you, the man who had led you through your panic to restore your breathing. Bloodshot eyes, wide with confusion and panic, meet a gaze that's at war between blue and grey, the color of an ocean during a storm. Said eyes scan your face, catching on your red-stained cheek and dragging up to study the source of the bleeding. Considering the amount of damage that the shot must have caused, and just how complex the brain was, Bucky considered that you had healed at an incredibly fast rate; the glint of bone had him swallowing, and he forced himself to pull his gaze away from the visible newly-formed skull to meet your eyes again, shaking his head slowly. 

"No, not any more. You're alive now." 

You weren't sure if you were soothed or terrified by his words; it was a relief to be alive, despite all that Hydra had done to you, but it was  _because_ of all that Hydra had done to you that you had come back from the fatal wound. The potential fact that you may now be immortal  _petrified_ you.

And it was with these overwhelming thoughts and the agony that pounded away in your head that you found yourself passing out.

 

* * *

 

Bucky had moved lightning-fast to catch the falling girl before her she collided head-first with the bloodied concrete. His arm shot out to wrap around her chest, her head lulling forward, and he let out a surprised grunt at her weight before adjusting his grip.

"C'mon, Stevie, we gotta get her outta here."

It took him a second to snap out of whatever had taken hold of him, but Steve was quick to help Bucky with supporting the unconscious girl. Between the two of them, they managed to move her until she was laid on the small cot, her bound wings hanging off of either side. Steve suggested that one of them carry her out whilst the other was on alert for any lurking Hydra agents, but it was difficult to get a grip on her with her wings; either the feathered appendages would get crushed between his arms and her body, or they would drag along the ground, and Steve knew that if they had to break out into a run, they would only be a tripping hazard. 

Instead, they opted to balance her between the pair of them, hooking her limp arms over each of their shoulders and holding her cold hands before crossing their arms over her back to hold onto each side of her waist. Bucky noted that her feet were almost a foot off the ground, and that her wings curved around to rest on both of the Super Soldiers' backs, as if to shield them despite her inert state. 

"We'll check the rest of 'em once we get her on the Quinjet." He muttered as they left the cell, careful to avoid her wings getting caught on the door frame, and Steve nodded, resisting the urge to look back in the rest of the cells for anyone else that may jolt back to life. 

"Nat, we've found ... someone. We're taking them back to the jet." 

"What do you mean, 'found someone'?" She asks over the comm, and he looks down at the prone form between him and Bucky before responding. 

"A test subject. They were all dead except for her." 

"What happened?"

Tightening his grip on her waist, Bucky replies shortly. "They were all executed, shot clean through the head."

"And she wasn't?"

"No, that's just it," Steve started, before sighing softly. "You'll see for yourself in a minute, we're regrouping and then going back in."

"Roger that." 

As planned, the Super Soldiers met Natasha in the corridor that they split apart at. Her eyes were scanning the figure held between them, taking in the blood-stained wings that rose over their heads like halos. Had she not been a professional at concealing her emotions, Natasha's face would have been awash with skepticism; the girl looked akin to a rag-doll, tiny and fragile between Steve and Bucky, and she was sure that she would look just as small on her own, especially with the wings sprouting from her back that looked almost  _too_ big for her. 

Instead, she merely raised a perfectly manicured brow. "You're not going to be able to get her up the stairs like that."

"Give her here," bucky grunted, shifting his grip on her as he glanced at Steve. He hesitantly let go, and the brunette shifted the unconscious girl until her chest was pressed to his back, his hands gripping onto her limp arms at the wrists. "Now lift her onto my back."

He did, and Bucky leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his neck before letting go to grip at the sides of her thighs. Hoisting her weight until he was sure that she wouldn't slip off, Bucky nodded at the redheaded spy to lead the way, instructing Steve to stay behind him in case she slipped. As they hurried to the stairs, Natasha alerted Sam and Clint over the comm that they had found someone, and the pair agreed to meet them outside of the facility. The brunette had paused to shift the dead-weight on his back a handful of times as they climbed the steep steps, though he didn't pause to resume their previous hold on her, instead persevering towards the door they had originally come through, only a step behind Natasha.

When the trio came out of the abandoned factory, Sam actually had to give a double take at what was on Bucky's back. When Natasha had told them that they were bringing a surviving test subject, he had expected someone that looked, well, human, and for Steve to be carrying them. For a split second, Sam had thought that Bucky himself had grown a pair of wings, but then he caught sight of the limp arms around his neck and the legs held by a flesh and a metal hand, and he realized that the Winter Soldier had the test subject on his  _back_. 

"The hell..." He muttered to himself, this being the first time he had seen a mutant with a more prominent and physical mutation. 

"Quit starin'," Bucky grunted, hauling her weight as he paused. "We gotta get her back to the jet."

"Clint, come with us; Sam, you go with Bucky." Steve instructed, and they split off, Clint joining Natasha and Steve whilst Sam took up Steve's position of spotting the unconscious girl should she fall.

Half an hour later and the pair were on board the Quinjet with the passed out girl on the floor. They had removed the restraints from her wings, and Sam had exclaimed over them in quiet amazement. "Guess you won't be needing me anymore." He joked, though neither of them laughed as they surveyed the damage, taking in the broken primaries and the featherless patches where the thick leather straps had worn them away. The rest of the team had called in over the comm as they had checked over her, and soon the Quinjet was taking off for the Avengers Tower, the two Super Soldiers keeping watch over their newfound mutant lest she wake up.


End file.
